As someone that hasn't gotten there yet in my own Trek reading, how incompatible is the Rihannsu series out of curiosity? I always heard that it was, if nothing else, a strong inspiration for Romulan culture in the books that followed it even up to today?
How old was Emony in "Old Souls", anyway? And is there an upper age limit to Trill who seek joining? Cause Audrid was the host by 2265 in the flashbacks of "Sins of the Mother", and there, Audrid and Jayvin already have Neema and Gran. Then in 2274 in The More Things Change, Chapel thinks of her as looking fantastic for her age. I don't remember all the myriad discontinuities off the top of my head, but for one, the first book, My Enemy, My Ally, was published back in 1984. Gene Roddenberry himself apparently disagreed with the book's vibe of "the Romulans were never truly Romulan but rather Vulcan". So he utilized TNG to make the Romulans how he wanted. And the later 2000s trilogy Vulcan's Soul (which itself has minor discrepancies with the concurrent ENT), doesn't completely agree with all the details of Duane's Rihannsu (though I'm not sure about Rihannsu: The Empty Chair, which at long last closed the miniseries in 2006).
I thought I remembered hearing that there was some kind of retroactive editing in the reprints when the last book came out to help close off some of the more glaring discontinuities that had arisen since then; was that the case, or am I remembering wrong? Not that I'd imagine that could have helped overall if it was something fundamental in the very presentation of the culture, of course, but I thought there was something like that that was done.
The editing made to the older stories in the omnibus was all about setting/timeframe. Assumptions about the timeframe of the stories changed over the years, and the omnibus firmly set them in the second five year mission. So mistaken references to ranks and uniform colors were changed, though some of them were missed. Other than the history of the Romulans (no Remans in the Rihannsu stories, as they weren't invented yet), and the fact that Romulan politics in the Rihannsu stories differ from all the other Romulan appearances in the TOS-movie era, I never really saw the problem with the Rihannsu books fitting into the novelverse. Maybe I'm forgetting something.
There were some minor tweaks to clarify the time frame. When the originals were written, there was some uncertainty about how much time elapsed between TOS and TMP, and Duane seemed to assume that the interval was close to real time; there's an implicit assumption that the books take place in a second five-year mission in between TOS and TMP, although Spock's World explicitly took place shortly after TMP. When the series was continued many years later, the new book (published in 2 volumes, but really just one book) was retconned to take place during the original 5-year mission, despite being set after Spock's World. By the time the collection The Bloodwing Voyages and the finale The Empty Chair were written, they were under new editorship, and the previous retcon was reversed, with all the books tweaked to take place in the post-TMP time frame. For instance, the reference to Chapel pursuing her doctorate was removed, Sulu's and Uhura's ranks were changed from Lieutenant to Lt. Commander, a reference to "The Doomsday Machine" had "not so very long ago" deleted, etc. But there were no changes to make the Rihannsu more consistent with screen continuity. Most of the changes were slight textual tweaks having nothing to do with continuity, e.g. correcting errors, changing the use of italics and capitalizations, etc.
Catching up on some of these... See, the thing is, I would argue that political parties are the only rational response to political actors with limited resources trying to engage in the goal of effecting a consistent ideological agenda in a democratic political culture. I'm getting a bit off-topic, so I'll put it in spoiler brackets if you're interested. Spoiler: Why I think political parties are inevitable in any democracy I suspect it would be akin to convergent evolution -- subjects facing similar environmental pressures would naturally evolve to adopt the same behavioral strategies. I imagine that the specific form the parties take may vary from world to world, but it seems to me that, ultimately, there are basically only X number of policies that can be pursued, and that humanoid psychology--whose differences in Trek are broadly cultural rather than physical--naturally attracts people to certain related policy concepts ("ideologies"). As such, in a democratic society whose political actors favor competing ideologies, the necessity of gathering resources, of running candidates, of effectively communicating messages to the public, and of making sure the public has a broad sense of a candidate's ideological tendencies, necessitates the formation of permanent political alliances (which we in English call "political parties"). In any democratic society with diverse political ideologies, these pressures will exist, and will be permanent. One cannot advance a particular ideological agenda without permanent political allies--temporary ad hoc political alliances and factions would rationally never be sufficient to marshall the necessary resources and acquire the necessary political influence. I think some of the surest signs of the necessity of political parties in a democratic polity are the real-world societies that have experimented with not having them. Either the attempt to rid themselves of those parties fails--as in the United States--or the state itself because anti-democratic, as in numerous Third World dictatorships where opposition to political parties ended up becoming opposition to dissent. So, yeah, my argument is that political parties are an inevitable response to the universal pressures of democratic politics, and that thus any democratic polity would by necessity have political parties. Like bats and birds independently evolving the similar skeletal structures necessary for flight, political actors on multiple democratic worlds would by necessity develop political parties. (And likely political parties that have ideologies analogous to those of parties on other worlds.) An interesting contrast to the Alternate Timeline, where apparently the attack of the Narada upon the USS Kelvin in 2233 led to a long-term delay in the design and construction of the Constitution class (2245 for the Prime Enterprise vs. 2258 for the Alt Enterprise) -- which was eventually (at least in significant part) constructed on Earth rather than in orbit. I've long been a supporter of year-round public schooling. Other Things of Note: Save the Date!: Last Full Measure establishes that the United Federation of Planets was formally founded on 12 August. TNG's "The Outcast" had previously established the UFP to have been founded in 2161; this was confirmed by ENT's "Zero Hour" and The Episode Which Shall Not Be Named. So now we know that Federation Day is on 12 August! Castle in the Sky: The Federation's founding ceremony was held in Candlestick Auditorium, which appears to be a rebuilt version of Candlestick Park in San Francisco, where the Beatles gave their last full concert. It seems oddly appropriate that the Beatles would have played a historic concert at the Federation's equivalent of Independence Hall, don't you think? Taking A Constitutional: The Federation's founding and organizing document is referred to in Last Full Measure as the Federation Charter. This matches numerous episodes (e.g., "The Outcast"). Other episodes of TNG refer to the Federation Constitution ("The Perfect Mate," "The Drumhead"); the novel Articles of the Federation will later specify that both are names for the same document, whose full formal name is, well, the Articles of the Federation. IIRC, TNG: Losing the Peace will establish that the people of the Alpha Centauri Concordium ratified the Articles of the Federation in 2161. I presume that this ratification took prior to the Founding, and that popular referenda on the Articles also took place on Earth, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar. TNG's "The Drumhead" and VOY's "Author, Author" establish that the enumerated list of civil rights and liberties protected by the Articles are known as the Guarantees. The Seventh Guarantee protects against self-incrimination (the equivalent of the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment), while the the Twelfth Guarantee deals with the definition and rights of artists. The Guarantees apply to all sapient lifeforms aboard Federation starships. Articles establishes that at least one provision of the Articles is a prohibition on any kind of slavery. DS9's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" establishes that the Articles prohibits the Federation government from interfering in the internal affairs of foreign cultures--a sort of civilian government equivalent to Starfleet's Prime Directive. "Accession" establishes that the Articles ban caste-based discrimination. TNG: Losing the Peace establishes that Articles 50 and 109 govern the treatment of refugees, and ban the establishment of fences or other enclosing devices around refugee settlements. TNG: A Time to Kill establishes that the Articles were later amended at least once, to produce the Eminiar Amendment, banning the practice of "glassing" planetary surfaces. The mechanics of the government outlined by the Articles is explored in some detail in Articles--particularly its rather unique idea of the President of the state serving as presiding officer of the legislature and appointing members of the legislature's committees with the ratification of the full legislature. Can I Have Your Autograph?: Some of this belongs under the entry for To Brave the Storm, but the research here was inspired by Last Full Measure. LFM establishes a number of signatories for the Articles, and The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm later expanded upon that list. So now known signatories to the Articles of the Federation include: United Earth Lydia Littlejohn, President Nathan Samuels, Prime Minister Haroun al-Rashid, Interior Minister Thomas Vanderbilt, Environment Minister Sarahd, Ambassador to the Coalition of Planets Jonathan Archer, Captain, U.E. Starfleet Confederacy of Vulcan T'Pau, Administrator Soval, Foreign Minister T'Maran, Peace Minister L'Nel, Ambassador Solkar, Ambassador Andorian Empire Anlenthoris ch'Vhendreni, Foreign Minister Thy'lek Shran, General, Imperial Guard Jhamel, Special Aenar Representative United Planets of Tellar Gora bim Gral, Foreign Minister Alpha Centauri Concordium Jie Cong Li, Ambassador Confederated Martian Colonies Qaletaqu, Special Representative Notes: One wonders where the heads of state and government are for Andor, Tellar, and Alpha Centauri. Unless of course they were present and the narrator just didn't list them. Also, does United Earth have a Foreign Minister of its own, or is Nathan Samuels pulling double-duty as his own Foreign Minister the same way Winston Churchill was his own Defense Minister in WW2? Second note: It's interesting that Qaletaqu is a signatory for Mars, yet Mars was not one of the founding Federation Members. In fact, even though Mars apparently joined up later that year, because Mars was not among the five founders, its Federation Councillor is not given automatic representation on the Federation Security Council (the Federation Council's national security committee) the way Earth's, Vulcan's, Andor's, Tellar's, and Alpha Centauri's are. If Qaletaqu were signing with the intent that Mars be one of the founders, that would hardly seem fair. Maybe Mars was sending a representative to sign as a sort of "friendly witness" rather than as an intended Member itself? It's slightly unclear if the Aenar community is considered to be part of the Andorian Empire or if they're considered a separate, sovereign nation. If the latter, Jhamel may also be a "friendly foreign witness" rather than signing as a representative of a founding Member State government. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?: In looking up the info on the Articles from To Brave the Storm, I noticed that that novel establishes United Earth's currency to be the United Earth credit. Which, again, is basically just taking a piece of Federation minutiae and retroactively making it an Earth thing the Federation adopted. (I always kind of liked to imagine that maybe U.E.'s official currency was the United Earth peso, or the United Earth dinar, or maybe the United Earth yuan.) I like this. I never cared for the idea that they had transporters during the ENT era, and I was glad when Christopher wrote them off in A Choice of Futures. I always wonder about the plausibility of the idea of the Trill being able to keep the Symbionts a secret into the 24th century. So, I haven't read Rihannsu in full, but I feel like you can probably squint a bit and "broad strokes" it into continuity. Maybe ignore the references to how the Romulan government is set up, but assume that the basic gist of the story of Ael coming to power as Empress is one in which she overthrows the current imperial dynasty and founds her own, which then ends up contesting with the subsequent Praetors and Senates as per usual but is itself somewhat more benign than what came before (which might explain why Shiarkeik seemed much nicer than his Praetors in the 2300s). Personally, I go by the Rihannsu/Spock's World vision of Vulcan and Romulan history. I'll squint a bit if there's a perceived incompatibility with ENT's depiction of ancient Vulcan.
However: While the launch of the Constitution class was delayed, we still got a reminiscent spaceframe as early as 2239, in the form of USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (not Kirk's) in Countdown to Darkness. Maybe the Kelvin crisis had SCE revise their long-term Constitution-class plans, instead incorporating all the fanciful tech gleaned from Kelvin's sensor records of the Narada, and then pushing a Constitution-lite into the field to compete with the expected technological revolution of the Klingons, who actually salvaged the Narada.
Too bad none of these works have a picture with which we can check the lines at the top for their exact wording. Sci, the narration does name the members of the United Earth contingent, then Jie Cong Li, and then "a couple of dozen others". Only a few names follow in the narration. So there were definitely unlisted signatories for Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar. I'm not sure about Earth and Alpha Centauri. YMMV on that passage. I sure would love to know the names of the final pre-Federation Andorian Presider, chief executive of Tellar, and Chancellor of Alpha Centauri. Beneath the Raptor's Wings refers to Vanderbilt at "defense secretary", To Brave the Storm calls him "environment minister", and A Choice of Futures says that he was "defense minister". How confusing. Curious how Lydia Littlejohn is now "the recently elected UE President". In Beneath the Raptor's Wings, she was "one of the up-and-coming members of United Earth's preeminent legislative body". Given that United Earth has a parliamentary system, the President must not have much real power. *shrug* I dunno what to make of Qaletaqu's signature. The paragraph on the previous page states "all five founding members of the Federation". It could be an oversight be Michael A. Martin. Though here is a real-life story that may or may not have relevance. In 1787, Alexander Hamilton, delegate for New York, signed the U.S. Constitution despite his fellow delegates having abandoned him because they disapproved of what had been crafted. Thus, the State of New York was legally one delegate short to pass the replacement for the Articles of Confederation. (note though that the Constitutional Convention wasn't where the Constitution was legally ratified; that came later in state ratification conventions, even in states who hadn't signed the Constitution) Also note that in the 1 November 2162 portion of A Choice of Futures, "Mars had recently agreed to join as the sixth member". I think that the Confederated Martian Colonies were admitted during 2162, not 2161. Star Trek's use of the title "Ambassador" annoys me. I am in favor of real-life political usage where an "ambassador" heads up the embassy in a foreign capital (or, I grudgingly concede, is chief representative to an intergovernmental organization like the U.N.). Solkar in the 2150s/2160s, Sarek, Gav, Shras, Lwaxana Troi, etc should not have the title "Ambassador". Can't they be "Special Emissary" like K'Ehleyr in 2365 and Fel Pagro in 2379? Or "Special Representative" like Qaletapu and Jhamel in this book? Such a title would befit the apparent flexible and mobile nature of their jobs. Here's another. T'Pau dies at the end of Spock's World while she is alive in The Pandora Principle, Vulcan's Heart, and Excalibur: Renaissance. Note about edits: I forgot that K'Ehleyr and Fel Pagro are "Special Emmisary", not "Special Representative".
Could it be that it's just that the new default meaning of "ambassador" isn't "ambassador-in-residence", but "ambassador-at-large"? That's basically the role that they fulfill, it seems like to me, but I could be wrong on that. It'd be sort of like a variation on a retronym.
Nasat are you planning on incorporating the young adult TOS Pocket Books from the 90's into the chronology? I think there are three of them. I'm guessing they would be coming up pretty soon.
Speaking personally, my biggest issue with political parties is that they represent the creation of a consistent group identity and therefore, given the tendency of most people to define themselves and the world in terms of membership blocs, they take on a life of their own. They encourage a sense of exclusive belonging, and that's not - to be blunt - an aspect of psychology that can be trusted in the political arena. Politics must be the process whereby problems are solved to everyone's benefit (or at least to no one's excessive loss), and group affiliation is at odds with this, because the goal in such cases will always be to benefit the in-group. When a group identity is established, in any situation, the overriding purpose of that group is then to ensure the maintenance, defence and expansion of the group's own power and influence. Rather than a means to an end, the influence of the group becomes an end in itself. To form permanent affiliations is to turn political discussion from a process engaged in by members of a community to a way of life and a measure of identity. The self and the political should, in my opinion, remain separate. Politics is something that is done, not something that someone is. Permanent group identity is a trait that evolved as a competitive survival instinct; it is combative and destructive, and above all selfish. I have difficulty accepting that any long-term good can come of its inclusion in politics - an exercise that is by definition cooperative and pluralistic. Again, though, I would hope that the Federation worlds generally know better than to assume that beneficial policies can be pursued by established, permanent groups - because once the group exists, more and more of its efforts will be directed toward its own maintenance and expansion, or reward for the membership, until the actual direction of policy is best defined not as a destination to be reached or an outcome to achieve, nor as a problem to be solved, but as a teat from which an continuous supply of public attention can be milked. Since to me politics is a problem-solving exercise for community benefit, encouraging this sort of arrest seems counter-productive. If multiple people within a community have similar ideas and policy goals, they can easily cooperate without drawing a wall around themselves. They can function as a group to promote their ideas and gather resources, or work together on a large-scale project toward specific goals, without locking themselves into a shared identity. If they can't, then how on Earth (or Tellar, or Bajor, etc. ) can they be expected to cooperate or work for mutual benefit with all the people who are not part of that group identity, i.e. not of the party or interest group? If they have to have their claws into one another to function together, what hope is there of their functioning with everyone else who has different ideas or values? I suppose one answer is a perceived "overtribe" or membership in a specific democratic structure that trumps the lesser affiliation, but in such cases the tendency will surely be toward homogeneity and enforced stasis. (I think there's a simple reason why a democracy tends to be replaced with a repressive dictatorship: the democratic system becomes about myriad groups fighting for ever larger slices of the pie regardless of how the pie is made, and in reaction the boot of enforced unity comes down, particularly when the economy is in tatters. I shall decide how the pie is cut. Stop squabbling, children, Authority is here). Despite what I'm saying here, I pretty much think you're entirely right in this, and it's a continuous source of frustration for me. I've seen any number of initiatives and positive efforts at change fail and be relegated to the dustbin of history because tribal-minded groups seized onto an issue or observation, coalesced around it, and made it into a permanent tool for their own expansion, power and control, farming the public sentiment and instincts as they go. Well, about the opposition to political parties morphing into opposition to dissent - that's because a tribal group cannot tolerate the existence of a rival group, or rivals. It's not really about banning parties, but banning every party except yours. To be honest, if tribal affiliation is an inevitability in politics, then conflict leading to destructive outcomes, blurring of parties into a default single party (i.e. complaints of American "Republicrats") or total exclusion/destruction of competitors is also inevitable. Arguing that we need to have parties - that is, tribalist behaviours - to guard against monolithic power structures - another tribalist behaviour - seems to me a little nonsensical. Unless the argument is to arrest tribalist action in an eternal conflict that no player can win. While I can see the appeal of such, it also suggests to me a government system that can never actually get anything done or work effectively but instead spends its time checking itself into gridlock. Again, politics should be a problem-solving process, not a struggle between power blocs, and if we're spending all our time dealing with the effects and problems arising from power blocs or trying to suppress their acting out rather than actually working on politics, then I don't see why we should have the blocs to begin with. I suppose it depends on how you view politics, really. To me, selfish pursuit of influence, resources, power or favour is at odds with the whole point of politics. To many, I think, it rather is the whole point of politics. Is your position therefore that democracy is a model of governance that only works for tribalists? That those without the urge to exclusive membership or identity are uninterested in inclusive communal structuring? Or is it, as I might be reading, more that it's an inevitability that such behaviour will exist and will prove the more successful approach, to the extent that if you refuse to play the game it will be played without you and you'll lose? Again, I should probably be clear here that I totally understand what you're saying, Sci, and for the most part I think you're probably entirely right. Unfortunately, due to my own position on things, that's not a worldview I can hold while remaining optimistic, so I tend to try and oppose it. It would be interesting to see how this plays into the later rule that a planet be politically unified before it can join the Federation (part of the odd tendency in Trek to see the planet - nothing smaller, nothing larger - as the base model of an individual, sovereign nation. It's even explicitly a Federation of Planets. Do all groups not affiliated with a mostly-global government have to send witnesses? Did someone track down the jungle peoples of South America, say, and ask them if they were keen on this Federation business, even if they don't even participate in United Earth (we know from The Sundered that many local cultures in places like the Amazon prefer to live more-or-less insular, traditional lives)? The pre-Federation currency of Earth is the Root of All Evil. 100 Roots to an Evil, 100 Evils to an All Evil. A simple, effective system. The Vulcan's Soul books will basically follow the Rihannsu model of Vulcan-Romulan history as close as remains possible, with new tangents on the formation of Remans, etc. Most of the Exiles' story is clearly based on the Rihannsu backstory; S'Task, T'Rehu, the Iruhe intellivore, etc. The language Rihannsu is used pretty consistently across the Novel 'Verse. However, to me this is all to be taken as homage, and not any attempt to keep Rihannsu compatible, and I feel that the differences are just too pronounced to justify the series' inclusion here. (Empress Ael will show up in Myriad Universes: The Chimes At Midnight, though. So in at least one timeline something akin to the Rihannsu Civil War occurred).
No, sorry, they're not on the list. (You know, I think at some point I should post chunks of the whole list, the next twenty or so entries, so people can make whatever suggestions occur).
Shards and Shadows: "Ill Winds" The biggest problem with this one, perhaps inevitably, is that there aren’t any Robert April stories in the prime universe to contrast it with, at least in this run-through. Any insights into how Mirror April works can’t help but fall flat absent a sense of how our version works. Still, as a look at how the Imperial Starfleet is progressing the piece is interesting enough. It sort of plays with its own premise, and that of the entire Mirror Universe series, by fleshing out the Terran Empire into something other than “flat-out brutal” only to subvert it. April’s cruel but thoughtful approach ultimately sees him overthrown by his wife, who is more traditionally ruthless, and that’s the behaviour and outlook which are rewarded in this world. The Terran Empire can try to be something more three-dimensional, but it’s never really convincing, and all these efforts to shift its outer demeanour around a little take us – and them – nowhere. There can't really be a softer or more reasonable Terran Empire, in part because it's too established a system; this is a people who have dug themselves too deeply into a groove. Robert April pays the price for embodying something even slightly more sophisticated, even when the difference isn't pronounced enough to be truly meaningful. April may be the "Quiet Tyrant" but he's still a tyrant, and should he ever choose not to be, someone else will take advantage of that in order to fill the role themselves. The "Ill Winds" of the title are arguably not just for April's own future - he made the mistake of being slightly reasonable/flexible and so became the vassal, not the master, of those close to him - but for the Empire, since we see here that necessary change won't come easily to a society that pounces on any dissention as a means of indulging its norms. As a system, it's depressingly "self-correcting". Continuity Sato II is on the throne. April ponders that the Empire was so assured in its supremacy after the rebellion was finally quashed (I wonder what happened to Rebel Clone Mirror Archer?) and its fleet of Constitution-class ships was created that it’s been “resting on its laurels”, and is now slightly concerned that other races are working feverishly to close the gap, and maybe they should stop this? The introduction of futuristic technology has led to the stagnation of the empire and accelerated, weapons-orientated research from other nations in an effort to catch up. Quite a waste; as so much in the Mirror Universe is. (April may have started to find himself in a position to see it, but that's debatable). Sarah April invents the agonizer, a miniature version of the agony booth. Imperial ships have prefix codes and their computer systems can be remotely tapped into by those who know the codes. See: "Nobunaga". This is our first real look at the Mirror Universe Klingons, who are rivals to the Terran Empire just as the prime Klingons are rivals to the Federation. Klingon technological advancement is at least in part the result of the jeghpu’wI' (as is possibly hinted to be the case in the Prime Universe, with Rosetta) here a race called Penemu. The Battle of Donatu V, in this universe, is not a Klingon assault on a Federation colonization support affair but a Terran-Klingon tussle resulting from Terran interference with a successful Klingon weapons test. H’Atoria is featured, the Klingon name for what Terrans call the Strelluf star group. Thomas Blair is the new First Officer on Indomitable. His prime counterpart is the final captain of the Defiant...and so a man of considerably more importance to this universe than its own Blair. Next Time: A prequel... but to what? The Children of Kings.
The use of "Empress Sato" in the Mirror Universe stories has always bothered me. In both Japanese and European traditions, monarchs are known by their given names and use no surnames. So she should have installed herself as Empress Hoshi. Indeed, if she's going by Japanese custom, then she should never be addressed by name at all (which is considered disrespectful), but should be referred to only as "Her Imperial Majesty the Empress." Also by Japanese custom, upon her death she should have been assigned a posthumous name based on the name for the era of her reign, in the way that Emperor Hirohito is posthumously known as Emperor Shōwa or the Shōwa Emperor.
Well in defense of the authors in the Mirror Universe series, mirror Hoshi Sato can make the rules as Empress. Hoshi Sato III states to her sister in The Sorrows of Empire, "We're nothing more than copies of the biggest narcissist in galactic history."
Now that you put it that way, given how important Sato's heritage seems to be to her, it is perhaps odd that she wouldn't be following Japanese Imperial custom. Then again, maybe it's a political thing. The Terrans seem to have attained a united cultural identity as Terrans, so perhaps each national and ethnic culture, while still propagating healthily and still a source of great personal pride, is carefully kept at a subordinate level to the Empire? Perhaps Sato can be as Japanese as she wishes while on the throne, but is careful to ensure that she remains a Terran Empress and not a Japanese Empress? That's the only excuse I can come up with. (Funnily enough, though, the first name Imperial usage actually came up in "Age of the Empress"! George the Second had his palace erected on North America...)
The Children of Kings This one is a little odd. It’s a prequel, to the Prime timeline’s Pike stories and to the Abramsverse, and so some of the minor continuity details and the general feel of the piece are a little...odd...at times, and hard to pin down to any one continuity. It's definitely an extrapolation of Enterprise into the early-mid 23rd Century, but it has its own unique take on the era. The Klingons are experimenting with cloaking technology (borrowing implicitly from Romulan research, presumably pirated intelligence from the experiments started a century early, as well as newer efforts), they had a rather secretive but successful medical exchange with Humans some years back, there’s a treaty in place (Gorengar, after a Klingon ship was destroyed while carrying UFP hostages). None of this flat-out contradicts the known Klingon-Federation status quo but it is a little uncomfortable. In other words, much of what is established here is fascinating and can usually be reconciled to interesting effect, but I wouldn’t hold any of it as binding on later works. Consider this one an honorary entry in the chronological run-through. This is a rather unfocused book, for all that it’s interesting enough. Is it a Captain Pike prequel, showing us a Pike new to the Enterprise and getting to grips with his team? Sort of, in places. Is it a Boyce piece, fleshing out his character? Sort of, although he’s really just McCoy but angrier. (Of course, he and McCoy were different forms of the same character anyway). Is it a showcase for the Orions? Sort of: we learn some interesting things about them, both their history and their character, but it’s nothing substantial. The most interesting point regarding Orions, though even this is underplayed, is how Orions are prisoners of their biology to a greater extent than most species. Their sexual characteristics are exaggerated, in overdrive, their puberty involving the release of massive amounts of sex hormones. We see many instances of reasoned sophistication in Orions - they can clearly be cunning, thoughtful, surprising beings - yet are they ever able to be more than what biology drives them to be? The females seductive space-vixens, the males muscled brutes. In fascinating contrast to the twin oppression of an overpowering biology and a societal system based on ownership and power over others, Orion society is almost obsessive about freedom and self-determination, rejecting permanent authority or centralized rule. They're a loose-knit, flexible culture who resist efforts at establishing a true cultural or political unity. They consistently turn their backs on cohesion in favour of self-interest. Here, the tallith is supposedly trying to unite the clan interests for the greater good, though her motives are not always pure, but the whole affair threatens to sink underneath the tide of clan feuds as she struggles to maintain her power. As Boyce disgustedly insists when in a particularly bad mood, the Orions are "animals". Also, as we’ve seen already with D’Jinnea in Forged in Fire, the pursuit of youth – the triumph over biology, or the resistance of its inevitabilities – is an almost irresistible drive to a powerful Orion female, whose influence and status are largely dependent upon traits of the body that will fade with age. Is the tallith a visionary, noble leader... or is she just another Orion unable to escape the clan feuds and drive for acquisition of power that define her culture, and the double-edged sword that is her biology? While the Orions don’t get as much attention here as I might have expected, there are some interesting revelations offered. They’re a very old species, who have seen a number of glory days and empires only to experience a general collapse, not that it dampens Orion spirits, apparently. They claim that their Second Empire was a golden age of star-spanning wonder, though the true extent of their reach and the sophistication of their technology is open to debate, if the conflicting opinions of the Human characters is anything to go by. It’s confirmed that Orions have a tendency to identify with clans, and we’re introduced to the term Caju (a lift from older RPG material, actually) – a trading interest/form of merchant clan/family business model (originally a specific clan that presumably became known as the exemplifier of a certain approach to business). Orions in colours other than green appear – we have a few natural blue-skins, and some aquas. Perhaps the biggest and most interesting surprise is the inclusion of a small, aqua-skinned Orion named Petri. We know this guy from TOS, where he was a representative of Troyius. Apparently, then, the idea here is that Troyians are Orions. I like that. I mean, why not? If Orions are such an old space-faring race and largely decentralized, why wouldn't they have established independent colonies? Why shouldn’t there be Orion populations with distinct cultural identities littered across the region? Tellun is in the vicinity of the Orion Colonies and the Borderland, after all. We’ll see if the mainstream novel ‘verse picks up on this at any point... The Borderland is still around, now more of a well-maintained neutral zone between the Klingons and the Federation. As well as the UFP, Orions and Klingons, it borders territory of the Huni and Dorelian (whoever they are). Mention is made of the “Dohelee Border”, where the Orion Syndicate is prominent, in contrast to the area in which this story takes place, where the Tallith’s Orion Confederacy is currently the dominant power. In other words, the Syndicate isn’t the focus here, but its existence is acknowledged. The actual story is nothing special, but engaging enough. Hoto’s betrayal was a genuine surprise to me. First Appearances of Things That Are Important In ascending order of importance: Phillip Boyce, “Number One” (who as ever is kept so mysterious and subject to unexplained behaviour that we can easily assume she is indeed the Immortal Morgan Primus), Christopher Pike, Spock and the USS Enterprise (whatever it looks like here...) As well as Orion, this story gives us an interesting look at Argelius, and the story of how it became friendly to the Federation. We’ve met some Argelians at Dax’s gymnastics tournament, but this is their real introduction. A general ecological collapse was causing plague and genetic anomalies to the extent that much of their civilization had collapsed, leaving only scattered remnants of functioning cities. How this situation came about isn’t mentioned, but we can easily guess. We know that the Argelians adopted a non-violent, hedonistic culture in reaction to a strict and terrible puritan regime that nearly destroyed them. References here to “radioactive wasteland” suggest that the slow death of Argelius is the lingering result of a prior devastating conflict, presumably whatever terrible abuses caused the Argelians to embrace their “Great Awakening”. The Federation – Boyce and co – fix the Argelian ecosystem and cure their medical ills, allowing the Argelians to begin re-establishing themselves across the rest of the planet. Perhaps it's no wonder that they're later courted as members. Richard Daystrom is mentioned. He’s perhaps the greatest computer expert in the Federation. Continuity Sarek has been named Vulcan Ambassador to Earth. Nova Vestroia is an asteroid colony on the edge of the Alpha Centauri System (presumably part of the Alpha Centauri Concordium). In Federation business, while the UFP is long established and strong, there is still the odd tension between its members. It’s noted that some Humans still nurse resentment of Vulcans for holding Humans back. Pike was slightly concerned that Spock being the lone Vulcan (half-Vulcan) on a Human ship might cause problems, but none materialized. Spock himself reflects at one point on the “short-sighted” policy that the Vulcan High Command of the previous century took in relation to the Andorians. Other remnants of pre-Federation history include the fact that the Vulcans are still considered the Federation’s best hope at reaching out to the Klingons. Klingon disdain for Humans is well known, of course, their disgust at the Andorians will surface at times (e.g. In the Name of Honor – the Klingons despise a war-like people who “sold out” to peace), and I doubt they’d recognise any of the newer members as much more than vassals. The Vulcans, though, can apparently still play on whatever reputation they established centuries earlier. The Klingon character K’Zon was victorious at Narendra. He was also instrumental in the Dourami campaign, which is mentioned several times as a major conflict fought by the Klingons. For almost a dozen years, the empire was in conflict with a foe (the Dourami?) which utilized "planet-killing" weapons, though what form these weapons took isn't mentioned. It’s noted that a favoured Klingon tactic is to assemble an assault fleet in a nebula. Even after they gain reliable cloaking technology, this will remain the case: the fleet that assaulted Tezwa in 2379 massed in the Zurav Nebula prior to the attack, and in 2333 the Klingons gathered a fleet in the Betreka Nebula prior to their clash with the Third Order, taking Gul Monor by surprise. So this certainly seems to fit. A Vulcan named Solkar was active as a famous explorer and archivist a thousand years ago. Presumably the familiar Solkar, Spock's great-grandfather, was named for him. Now for the two big continuity issues. The smaller of the two is a reference to Orions engaging Klingons in combat amid the stars 2,000 years ago – Klingons didn’t have warp drive then. The Orions being a powerful force in this time is entirely consistent with other sources – this would be around the time that they were extorting Vulcan, and causing S’Task to break with Surak. Maybe a population of Klingons had been taken from Qo'noS and were being used as slave-soldiers by another race, likely the people who became the gods of Klingon legend (as strongly implied in Full Circle)? Who knows how long the "gods" were meddling; and we know it was prior to the Hur'q invasion (which itself led to the Klingon interstellar space program). The larger continuity bump, though still just a throw-away reference, is a mention of the Ferengi Commerce Authority as a known entity. Well, the Thelasians knew of them a century prior, so maybe whatever broken remnants of the Thelasians remain have contacts there, and Spock is just exceptionally resourceful and well-informed? (Which he is). Next Time: I guess it's time for "The Cage".
I am going along with you on the timeline and was wondering where you were going to put Diane Carey's Final Frontier and Best Destiny. About as much as you are going to get on Robert April comes from those two books. They have framing stories from the Kirk era and I know you've addressed somewhere in here how you were going to go about doing them. I was just curious where you are going to place those books. Now that I think about it, MWB's Burning Dreams has the bulk of its content outlining the early years of Chris Pike. I think it had a framing story around the time of "The Menagerie" but I'm not sure.
There's no way Final Frontier and Best Destiny can fit into the modern series/novel continuity. For one thing, FF is based on the old Spaceflight Chronology dating system that put TOS in the first decade of the 23rd century rather than the 2260s. Also, there's no way to reconcile FF with Enterprise, because FF pretty much treats April's Enterprise as the first starship (i.e. the first interstellar spacecraft to be called by that name), the first ship with warp drive that can be used continuously rather than in discrete jumps, the first ship with practical transporters (that work in seconds rather than minutes), etc. Basically a lot of the same "firsts" that have now been established as achievements of Archer's Enterprise. So that's out, and since BD is a sequel, it doesn't fit either. Maybe, at some point, someone could do a read-through of the books in the '80s novel continuity as a supplement to this thread. There might be a bit of overlap, but not much. As for Burning Dreams, it bounces around the timeline in such a stream-of-consciousness fashion that it's hard to know where one would place it in a chronological read-through.